


Leap and the net will appear

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Life
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dani doesn't ever think that Crews isn't coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leap and the net will appear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [centuries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/centuries/gifts).



> Thanks to Vehemently and innie_darling for the lightning fast beta.

Dani doesn't ever think that Crews isn't coming. She doesn't hope: she knows. Crews is coming. She just has to survive long enough for him to get here. Wherever _here_ is. Their footsteps echo loudly as they walk around her; she can hear the rumble of the subway, the barking of dogs, the low, distant beat of music. She times her breathing to it, training her heartbeat too, slow and steady and deep. Crews would be proud. She lets herself fade in and out, the ache in her skull worse than any hangover, familiar as the desperate itch for a drink crawling its way under her skin. Her fingers tighten on the arms of the chair, but she has no leverage, can't break the bonds that tie her to it.

After the first rush of adrenaline, the sharp metal taste of fear; her mouth goes dry. She breathes in the stale air and sour stench of bile that soaks the canvas bag on her head, too grateful for the oxygen to gag at the smell. Still, when Roman rips it off, she sucks down air like she's dying, the way she'd suck down vodka if she could. He shoves the camera at her, and even with her mouth as dry as her sense of humor, she works up enough saliva to spit in his face.

Nevikov backhands her, and the insult is worse than the injury. She prefers the solid flurry of punches that comes next, even if it leaves her ears ringing and her jaw aching, her eyes stinging with tears she refuses to shed. She can taste blood on her tongue, smell it on her skin. She's not some damsel in distress; she's a cop, and she puts on the bold, brave face that is who she always wants to be.

She recites the message Nevikov gives her, takes another punch when she goes off-script and tries to tell Crews where she is, why she's there. She's slowly putting the pieces together, trying to feel the edges of the ones that are missing, the blank spaces Crews has filled and either chosen not to share with her or shared in some oblique Crews way that she has yet to figure out.

We're connected, she tells Nevikov.

We are nothing, he answers.

No one is nothing, she says. Nothing is nowhere. She wants to laugh. She understands now, and she wants to tell Crews, wants to see his face light up with amusement and pride.

She repeats her silent mantra: Crews is coming for her. She just has to hang on until he gets there.

Her bravado is shaken when Nevikov tells her that her father is dead. She tests at the statement, turns it over in her mind, pokes and prods it the way she used to tongue loose teeth as a kid, feeling the roots give and the blood flow.

Nevikov is agitated, and she picks at him, pokes his sore spots with as little pity as she pokes her own. Anger makes him careless, sloppy. The possibility of a mistake is worth the additional pain; she'll take it all and more if it helps Crews find her, helps her figure out why Nevikov wants Rayburn, what the connections are and where they lead.

She hears him on the phone, and then they're pulling her out of the chair, dragging her into a car, and tearing off into traffic. She knows where she is now, where she was. She figures out where she's going when she sees the trees, smells the sweetness in the air--the orange grove. Crews's orange grove. They'll kill me here, she thinks, and my body will feed the trees. She wonders if it would make the oranges taste sweeter. She's disturbed by how undisturbed the thought leaves her. She's not going to die here today. She knows that. Not because she has so much more to do with her life, but because she has Charlie Crews on her side and he has some crazy plan to get her out of this. She doesn't have faith in much anymore, and she doesn't need to for this, because she has proof.

They roll to a stop amid the trees and Nevikov pulls her out of the SUV. Crews switches places with her, takes her seat without asking, the quick brush of his hand against hers as they pass each other, and the determined look in his eyes as he gets into the vehicle are both reassuring and frightening at the same time. It hurts to see him drive off in her place, as calm as she's ever seen him on the surface, but she can tell he's wound up, angry. She's his partner and she's being used against him. It's a position he's been in too often. She's bloodthirsty enough to hope he makes Nevikov pay.

After a tense twenty minutes, Bodner's phone rings. She can tell by the look of slack-jawed surprise on his face that it's Crews.

"He's coming back to the grove," Bodner says. "He wants us to meet him there." Bodner must see the question on her face because he says, "No, I don't know what happened."

Dani wants to laugh, but she knows laughing is only one step removed from crying, so she doesn't. Instead, she takes a deep breath and folds her hands in her lap, trying to will the car to go faster.

Her heart stutters and speeds up when she sees Crews standing in the grove, dust settling around him, his collar open and his tie loosened. If it weren't for the suit, she'd think he was a gunslinger from an old Western, Gary Cooper or John Wayne, bigger than life. She doesn't want to think about what he had to do to get back here, pushes the thought away for the moment to revel in the fact that he's safe, that they're both still alive.

He gives her a small half-smile and she beams at him; the expression feels odd on her face. She insists she's fine, and she can go to the emergency room if she isn't (she won't; she's afraid all they'll do is give her drugs she can't take), but Crews ignores her and calls it in. There's still tension in the set of his shoulders, the lines of his face, enough that it makes her tense, keeps her from fighting him on it.

Bodner wanders away to call his wife, and Dani takes the opportunity to study Crews, shielding her eyes against the bright sunshine, the way the blue of his suit echoes the sky.

"What did you do?" she asks while they wait. She thinks of the warm brush of his fingers against hers as they switched places in Nevikov's SUV.

"What I had to," he answers. The silence goes on a little too long before he says, "Don't worry. I won't make you fill out the paperwork."

Dani laughs and then she can't stop laughing, feels the sob bubbling up in her chest and forcing its way out like she's worshipping at the porcelain altar after an all night bender.

Crews's forehead wrinkles in confusion, or given the tone of his voice when he says "Reese?" maybe it's concern. He puts a hand on her arm, anchors her when she feels like she's going to float away.

"Nevikov said he killed my father."

Crews takes a minute to process that. "Okay."

"Okay?" She forces down the hysteria but can still hear it on the edges of her voice.

"Not okay, I mean, okay, we'll find out if that's true." He squeezes her arm gently and she can feel the warmth of his fingers even through her clothes. She misses that warmth when he takes his hand away. "It's probably not true."

"You don't have to lie to me."

"When have I ever lied to you, Reese?"

The ambulance arrives, lights swirling and sirens blaring, before she can answer. A black sedan follows and Tidwell, Stark, and Sever tumble out before it's even fully stopped.

Tidwell has his hands shoved into his pockets so he doesn't touch her in front of everyone else, and she feels a pang then, guilt or disloyalty, she's not sure.

"Reese," he says, finally reaching out and putting a hand on her upper arm, professional for once, even though everyone here knows they're together. "Thank God you're all right."

She gives him a small smile. "Yeah." He climbs into the back of the ambulance with her, insists on riding along, even though she swears she doesn't need to go to the hospital.

Crews catches her eye and raises his eyebrows, his mouth quirked in a familiar half-smile.

She bites her lip and regrets it immediately, the familiar, hated taste of blood back in her mouth. She nods and Crews nods in return.

"I'll meet you at the hospital," he says, and tips his head back towards the car he arrived in. She relaxes and lets them load her into the ambulance.

He's her partner, and he's always going to be there for her. Everything else might be a confused mess right now, but that's one thing she knows for sure.

end

~*~


End file.
